<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2016 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'Getting lost, getting laid off, and fixing up my bicycle',
	'body' => <<<END
<p>
	When my mother heard about my accident last night, she ran out and bought me bicycle lights.
	I was going to do that as time allowed, but she didn&apos;t want to wait any longer.
	I left for work even earlier last night than the night before, though I didn&apos;t quite get away from the house as quickly as I&apos;d hoped to.
	Trying to get to work as quickly as possible, I let gravity do all the work on any downhill slopes, not breaking any more than I had to.
	I cried literal tears out of fear of the speed.
	I took a new route to work trying to minimize my uphill stretches, but the streets didn&apos;t connect up the way that I thought that they did and I ended up lost.
	As the streets in this section of town were straight, I just kept following the road that I was on, figuring that it&apos;d lead me in the correct direction.
	That is, until I crossed the boundary between North Bend and Coos Bay, the name of the street that I was on changed, and I recognized the new street name, Koosbay (sic) Boulevard, as being that of a street that lies perpendicular to the direction that I thought that I was going.
	Koosbay Boulevard intersects with a street that I know that I can use to get to work though, so I continued following it, trying to figure out how I&apos;d gotten turned around so badly.
	As it turned out, I didn&apos;t get turned around at all; Koosbay Boulevard curves.
	There was an opportunity to keep going straight as Koosbay Boulevard peeled away, but I was done with being lost.
	I was getting frustrated with how difficult the bicycle was to peddle in the gear that it&apos;s stuck in, and didn&apos;t need to add having no idea where I am to that frustration.
</p>
<p>
	Once back in familiar territory, I rode past a couple establishments with homeless people curled up under blankets in front of their doors.
	It must suck being homeless.
	They looked cold.
	My life sucks.
	My home situation isn&apos;t great, I hate my long commute, and I hate graveyard shift.
	But unlike them, at least I have a house to sleep in; a relative fortress against weather, dogs, and wild city animals.
</p>
<p>
	I stopped in at Subway for a sandwich to take to work to supplement the potato patties that I had.
	I asked for my usual sandwich, the one without meat, and they didn&apos;t even ask what cheese I wanted.
	They just didn&apos;t give me any.
	That&apos;s awesome! At other Subways, I always need to decline the cheese.
	This subway must not offer cheese on their vegetable sandwiches.
	I think that the sandwich, combined with the potato patties, made all the difference for me today.
	I didn&apos;t get enough sleep, but I also didn&apos;t feel overly exhausted.
	I held up fairly well.
</p>
<p>
	I didn&apos;t get as much time to rest between my commute and when I had to clock in as I&apos;d hoped for.
	I figured at the time that it was because of the strange path that I&apos;d taken to get to work.
</p>
<p>
	I made it today&apos;s goal to listen to four music albums from my Bandcamp collection so that I could select the tracks to choose as my favorites on my Bandcamp account.
	The bosses here are much more of sticklers to the law than the bosses at my former place of employment, and legally, they must give me at least two breaks and one meal period, all three of which would give me a chance to switch albums.
	The boss ended up giving me an extra five-minute break at one point though, so I managed to get through five albums! I must admit, the ambient music is somewhat torturous.
	I can stand it if it&apos;s just playing around me, but to have it playing in my headphones and trying to decide which track is my favorite is a bit much.
</p>
<p>
	Today, we only had three workers including the boss and myself again, though this time, the third worker wasn&apos;t the other boss.
	I ended up working on the other sapling protector machine, the one that the two bosses worked with yesterday, along with the other regular worker.
	No wonder the two bosses worked this machine together yesterday! It was set up to produce larger protectors, and these protectors are a real pain in the neck to deal with.
	Having just as thin of walls as the regular sapling protectors but also having a wider channel down the middle, these things lack the structural integrity that the smaller ones have.
	It&apos;s far too easy to make them cave in when grouping them.Once they&apos;ve caved in, there&apos;s often no fixing them, and you end up having to start over.
	On top of that, they are wider than the tube on the cutter that they come out of, so they come out of the machine pre-collapsed.
	They must be straightened up, put together, and kept from caving while together.
	The extra care that needs to be put into these ones greatly slows down the process.
	There&apos;s no way to rush this, and having any less than two people working this machine is unacceptable.
	I got too close to the conveyor belt at one point though, and I ended up with black grease all over my light tan shirt.
	Hopefully, that will come out in the wash.
</p>
<p>
	One of the bag extruders was set up, but without the sealer/cutter.
	Instead, it was paired with a mechanized spool that wound up all the extruded bag material.
	I asked about what it was, and it seems that it&apos;s oyster netting.
	I didn&apos;t realize that you could catch oysters in a net, I thought that they attached themselves to the sea floor.
	This being a strange and very different product than what we&apos;ve been making, asked about our limitations.
	Can we produce whatever the customer asks for as long as it has that same mesh-like texture? The boss responded that we&apos;re limited in size and that the extruders that we use always extrude in a diamond-weave pattern (which is what I&apos;d meant by having the mesh-like texture), but other than that, we can in fact extrude arbitrary goods that our customers ask for.
</p>
<p>
	One of my coworkers from the next shift caught me after my shift eating potato patties and warned me that potato consumption can lead to diabetes.
	His logic was that potatoes turn into starch and starch turns into sugar.
	Potatoes are already made of mostly starch though, they don&apos;t &quot;turn into&quot; it.
	He also said that there is a reason that most diabetics avoid potatoes.
	I explained that I needed the potatoes for energy, otherwise, I am always tired, then asked what alternatives he recommended.
	He recommends fruit, peanuts, and green tea.
	I forget what the green tea is for, but the protein in peanuts can be broken down for energy and the fruit contains sugars.
	But if sugars are the enemy, how is fruit a decent choice? Once I got home, I did some research on potatoes and diabetes.
	I couldn&apos;t find any information that said that potato consumption can or cannot lead to diabetes, but I did find information that well-informed diabetics don&apos;t avoid potatoes.
	Additionally, a type of sweet potato is actually believed to be good for diabetics.
	As I can&apos;t find any information that actually says that potatoes are a risk factor, I&apos;m not giving them up for now.
	Fruit&apos;s sugar is good for energy spikes, but not sustained energy and heavy peanut consumption to replace potatoes would make me fatter than I already am.
	Being further overweight is probably a bigger risk factor for diabetes than the potatoes are.
</p>
<p>
	On the way home, I ran into my boss.
	It seems that he&apos;s spoken with the boss that offered me the alternative shifts, and they feel that there isn&apos;t enough work to be done to justify keeping me around.
	I&apos;ll speak with the other boss about it myself tomorrow, but it looks like tomorrow is likely my last day there.
</p>
<p>
	I quickly found that my tire was flat on the way home.
	What in the world? I&apos;d just replaced that inner tube! I debated about making a detour and stopping at a store that sells inner tubes on my way home.
	I didn&apos;t want to go the extra distance, I was already tired and had to walk most of the way home, dragging the bike with me.
	In the end though, I decided that it was best to make the extra stop.
	If I actually needed the replacement inner tube, I&apos;d be saving myself another trip.
	More importantly, I&apos;d be sure that my mother wouldn&apos;t interfere and make the trip via a fossil-fuel-guzzling motorized vehicle.
	If it turned out that I didn&apos;t actually need the inner tube, at least I&apos;d have a spare for next time I needed one.
</p>
<p>
	While I was at the store, I found a bike lock that uses letters to form a password instead of numbers! I figured that I&apos;d set the password to something only people that actually know me would ever think of and it&apos;d be easy to remember.
	After getting it though, I found much to my disappointment that the password isn&apos;t settable.
	I&apos;m stuck with the default password, &quot;MIME&quot;.
	I wouldn&apos;t have bought the lock if I&apos;d known that; I should have read the package more closely.
	I suppose &quot;MIME&quot; is fine as long as I pretend that it is referring to &quot;Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions&quot; and not people that pain their faces and avoid speaking.
</p>
<p>
	I took a shortcut through the woods to get home from the store, but I ended up getting lost again.
	I came out of the woods at the wrong spot, but it was still closer to home than I would have been in that time if I&apos;d taken the street route.
</p>
<p>
	Once home, I found that my inner tube&apos;s valve stem had been broken off and the inner tube had been stretched far beyond the size that it should have been.
	Did this happen in the crash? If so, it&apos;d explain my difficulty is riding <strong>*to*</strong> work today.
	I assumed that I was just stuck on a bad gear, as the bike is stuck on one gear, unable to shift.
	I guess I&apos;ll find out tonight.
</p>
<p>
	I might have gotten enough sleep today if I hadn&apos;t been dealing with the bum tire, but that took a large chunk of time.
	The tire wouldn&apos;t even come off until I&apos;d wrestled the inner tube out of it.
	Maybe tomorrow I can get more sleep.
</p>
<p>
	My first paycheck came in the mail, but it was from the temp agency, not my workplace.
	Are they paying me through the temp agency? I did see that listed as one of the services that the temp agency provides.
</p>
END
);
